EnviroDude:for Romney - Why do you adhere to a religion founded by a false prophet?

I would go with: "The Mormon Church was officially racist until 1978, when you were 31 years old and a high ranking member of the church. Considering that your opponent is an African American, I think you need to answer whether you did not believe in the beliefs of your church, or were you a racist at the time? Do you continue to not believe in your church if your answer is the former, and are you still a racist if the answer is the latter?"

In the last two years leading up to this election, how many private meetings have you or your senior staff had with executives or representatives of the firm, Goldman Sachs? What issues were discussed in the meetings? And finally, do you think firms like Goldman Sachs have an unfair amount of influence over politics?

Geotpf:I would go with: "The Mormon Church was officially racist until 1978, when you were 31 years old and a high ranking member of the church. Considering that your opponent is an African American, I think you need to answer whether you did not believe in the beliefs of your church, or were you a racist at the time? Do you continue to not believe in your church if your answer is the former, and are you still a racist if the answer is the latter?"

Or:The founder and first six(?) Prophets of your religion were all racists who were insistent that blacks were less then human. Who was right, the Prophet in 1978 or Joesph Smith?

"President Obama, the challenger, Gov. Romney, has declared that if he were elected President that he would move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. My question, Mr. President, is why you do not love Israel as much as Gov. Romney?"

simplicimus:CNN just put a strange spin on the VP debate: one side of the Catholic Church vs the other side. Hint, the council of Bishops is not supporting Ryan.

I learned from some conservatroll on facebook this week that CNN is still the Communist News Network. I mean, Lou Dobbs (yeah, I know, former host), Mary Matalin, Bill Bennett, Alex Goudoloupodopogapolos - doesn't get much more libby than that. Also, Erin Burnett from CNBC, total lib tits there.

oldass31:A Presidential debate moderated by Fareed Zakaria would be fascinating.

he's in a little bit of hot water, right now.

CNN has suspended him for a month for plagiarism -- during this month they will be going over every article he wrote for mistakes and unattributed quotes. If they find anything significant he will not have another job, except possibly as a side-kick on morning joe.

Satanic_Hamster:Geotpf: I would go with: "The Mormon Church was officially racist until 1978, when you were 31 years old and a high ranking member of the church. Considering that your opponent is an African American, I think you need to answer whether you did not believe in the beliefs of your church, or were you a racist at the time? Do you continue to not believe in your church if your answer is the former, and are you still a racist if the answer is the latter?"

Or:The founder and first six(?) Prophets of your religion were all racists who were insistent that blacks were less then human. Who was right, the Prophet in 1978 or Joesph Smith?

coeyagi:simplicimus: CNN just put a strange spin on the VP debate: one side of the Catholic Church vs the other side. Hint, the council of Bishops is not supporting Ryan.

I learned from some conservatroll on facebook this week that CNN is still the Communist News Network. I mean, Lou Dobbs (yeah, I know, former host), Mary Matalin, Bill Bennett, Alex Goudoloupodopogapolos - doesn't get much more libby than that. Also, Erin Burnett from CNBC, total lib tits there.

they also employ Eric Ericson and once employed Glenn Beck lest we forget.

NewportBarGuy:I miss Sam Donaldson being a total dick to all parties in his interviews. Sometimes, that's exactly what we need.

Lol, I had completely forgotten about him. Sam Donaldson was without a doubt one of the 20th century's biggest assholes. Universally loathed by all, even his loyal viewers. But the man was fair and topical. You didn't just fire off a platitude in response to a question of his and hope to get away with it.

I tried to find the Hunter Thompson quote, but gave up, so to paraphrase: "There are some noises no man deserves to hear, and Sam Donaldson screeching at a press conference is one of them."

I would love to see this woman get a chance to ask questions and them be forced to answer hooked up to a lie detector

I'm happy to have liberals with their own shows -- I think smart liberals should present our positions and defend them.

But neither Moyer nor Maddow should be the MODERATOR for a debate -- they can be on a panel that asks questions but moderation does not seem to be their strong point.

I wouldn't mind seeing a debate with two hyper-partisan moderators, one for each candidate. Let Keith Olbermann ask Romney questions, while Sean Hannity asks Obama questions. It wouldn't exactly be the model of decorum, but it would certainly reflect the modern political landscape quite well.

Geotpf:Satanic_Hamster: Geotpf: I would go with: "The Mormon Church was officially racist until 1978, when you were 31 years old and a high ranking member of the church. Considering that your opponent is an African American, I think you need to answer whether you did not believe in the beliefs of your church, or were you a racist at the time? Do you continue to not believe in your church if your answer is the former, and are you still a racist if the answer is the latter?"

Or:The founder and first six(?) Prophets of your religion were all racists who were insistent that blacks were less then human. Who was right, the Prophet in 1978 or Joesph Smith?

Nice. I like that.

That's always been an interesting thing/problem with the Mormons. Their branch/religion was founded in modern enough history that it's very well documented publicly (and even more detailed I imagine in their own secret archives). It's not like they can claim this is something from 2000 years ago that wasn't written down for several hundred years afterwards and translated through four different languages and that this is just a reinterpretation of the old writing.

This is only 150ish years down the line in a religion that says their Prophet is the unquestionable word of God.

imontheinternet:I wouldn't mind seeing a debate with two hyper-partisan moderators, one for each candidate. Let Keith Olbermann ask Romney questions, while Sean Hannity asks Obama questions. It wouldn't exactly be the model of decorum, but it would certainly reflect the modern political landscape quite well.

That would be a total clusterfark. I'd watch it for the hilarity, but I really don't know what possible value anyone would get out of it.

I would love to see this woman get a chance to ask questions and them be forced to answer hooked up to a lie detector

I'm happy to have liberals with their own shows -- I think smart liberals should present our positions and defend them.

But neither Moyer nor Maddow should be the MODERATOR for a debate -- they can be on a panel that asks questions but moderation does not seem to be their strong point.

I wouldn't mind seeing a debate with two hyper-partisan moderators, one for each candidate. Let Keith Olbermann ask Romney questions, while Sean Hannity asks Obama questions. It wouldn't exactly be the model of decorum, but it would certainly reflect the modern political landscape quite well.

nah I'd rather have some modicum of decorum and discourse. otherwise you might just as well have Glenn Beck and Randy Rhodes

sprawl15:imontheinternet: I wouldn't mind seeing a debate with two hyper-partisan moderators, one for each candidate. Let Keith Olbermann ask Romney questions, while Sean Hannity asks Obama questions. It wouldn't exactly be the model of decorum, but it would certainly reflect the modern political landscape quite well.

That would be a total clusterfark. I'd watch it for the hilarity, but I really don't know what possible value anyone would get out of it.

If politics is going to turn into the WWE anyway, we might as well see a cage match.

sprawl15:imontheinternet: I wouldn't mind seeing a debate with two hyper-partisan moderators, one for each candidate. Let Keith Olbermann ask Romney questions, while Sean Hannity asks Obama questions. It wouldn't exactly be the model of decorum, but it would certainly reflect the modern political landscape quite well.

That would be a total clusterfark. I'd watch it for the hilarity, but I really don't know what possible value anyone would get out of it.

Instead of the candidates spouting talking points, the moderators would do it for them...

I would love to see this woman get a chance to ask questions and them be forced to answer hooked up to a lie detector

I'm happy to have liberals with their own shows -- I think smart liberals should present our positions and defend them.

But neither Moyer nor Maddow should be the MODERATOR for a debate -- they can be on a panel that asks questions but moderation does not seem to be their strong point.

I wouldn't mind seeing a debate with two hyper-partisan moderators, one for each candidate. Let Keith Olbermann ask Romney questions, while Sean Hannity asks Obama questions. It wouldn't exactly be the model of decorum, but it would certainly reflect the modern political landscape quite well.

that would be ridiculous -- the candidates would have to unwind the fallacies before starting to answer the kernel of each question.

Get people that ask good honest questions and ensure the question gets answered (Olbermann is better than Hannity at being honest -- but not by much)

Maddow is better than either of them. Jon Stewart would ask a reasonable question (but he's too goofy to actually be considered).Fareed would be good -- although he's out

Maybe get a foreign correspondent from Al Jezeera to ask a tough foreign policy question

I would love it if we adopted something similar to "the Prime Minister's Questions" here for the President to answer to the Senate. It'd be too much of a ruckus to do it in the House.

I enjoy watching the Prime Minister's Questions, even though most of the time I have no idea what's being discussed. We could do that in the senate, but what would be the large book the President consults?

The thing is, the Prime Minister is a member of Parliament, while the President is not a member of Congress. In the Us, the President and Congress are co-equal; having him called to the carpet by Congress, especially on a regular basis, is saying Congress is his boss, which is not how the system works. The PM, while holding much of the executive power in Britain, is still part of Parliament, and having him answer to his colleagues is perfectly in line with his place in the legislative part of the British government.

Also, in the Westminster system, the PM is (usually) a sort of theoretical dictator. His party (or coalition) holds a majority of seats in Parliament, and his people hold most of the ministerships. In theory, he can pass what he wants, when he wants, and no power can do anything about it (especially now that Lords has had what balls it had left lopped off). Tradition and fear of voter reprisals tends to keep this in check, but the questioning also serves a purpose by making the PM have to explain himself. the panto mummery of it all is because they all realize this is a form of public shaming to keep the PM in check, and that he could - in theory - just ramrod everything he wants through by main force and/or have the opposition purged from Parliament (looking at you, Pride). So he makes a big deal of being magnanimous enough to take it, his supporters and opponents cheer, boo, and hiss at the appropriate times and in the appropriate manner for their sides, people get to air grievances (real and imagined), and Britain continues their weird little dance of governmental Calvinball (which I admit has generally tottered along reasonably well - though you do wonder at a system where the main check on tyranny is that no one has been a complete evil bastard yet).

Gosling:Candy Crowley? Really? That's the best they could get? If they were trying for a woman, I mean, I know they couldn't get someone overly outspoken even if it's someone like Rachel Maddow, but... what about, for example, Isha Sesay?

How well do you think having a British journalist conduct a U.S. Presidential debate would go over?

Crowley is a decent choice. She's well informed and doesn't come across as partisan.

sprawl15:imontheinternet: I wouldn't mind seeing a debate with two hyper-partisan moderators, one for each candidate. Let Keith Olbermann ask Romney questions, while Sean Hannity asks Obama questions. It wouldn't exactly be the model of decorum, but it would certainly reflect the modern political landscape quite well.

That would be a total clusterfark. I'd watch it for the hilarity, but I really don't know what possible value anyone would get out of it.

To be honest, I think that scenario would work to Dem favor. Think about it - Hannity is utterly incapable of asking a question that isn't framed a certain way. "Mr. President, so many people think you hate America and religion. Convince them otherwise"

Olbermann is by my estimation about 75% as douchey as Hannity, but from time to time he's been known ask a real question, And we all know how Romney handles those.

Ultimately I envision Obama handing Hannity his ass and Romney stumbling to answer a simple question about his tax plan.

qorkfiend:Instead of the candidates spouting talking points, the moderators would do it for them...

Voiceover: "In the interests of balanced moderation, both sides have agreed to certain ground rules."Olbermann: "For this debate, I have agreed to refrain from playing classical music during my questioning."Hannity: "For purposes of this debate, I will assume that Obama is a natural-born American citizen."

imontheinternet:If politics is going to turn into the WWE anyway, we might as well see a cage match.

sprawl15:qorkfiend: Instead of the candidates spouting talking points, the moderators would do it for them...

Voiceover: "In the interests of balanced moderation, both sides have agreed to certain ground rules."Olbermann: "For this debate, I have agreed to refrain from playing classical music during my questioning."Hannity: "For purposes of this debate, I will assume that Obama is a natural-born American citizen."

imontheinternet: If politics is going to turn into the WWE anyway, we might as well see a cage match.

FishyFred:Cletus C.: "President and Exalted Leader Obama, has a meter been created that could accurately capture the stratospheric level of your awesomeness?"

"Rmoney, could you be more evil?"

Have you ever watched her show? She often lays into Obama for not being liberal enough.

Not just for not being liberal enough, but for his actual non-partisan fark-ups. When someone spends most of their time openly mocking Republicans, it doesn't make you a default Obama acolyte.

The difference between liberal commentators and their Fox brethren is that people like Maddow routinely tear Democrats a new one on their show, while Hannity finds ways to defend the indefensible. "Paul Ryan discovered raping a 7 year-old boy. Was he framed by Democrats? We'll talk about it after the break."